Press Release

Israeli Deputy Minister of Defense Makes Provocative Statements Regarding Extra-Judicial Killing of Palestinians

 

Ref: 116/99

Date: 10 November 1999

 

PCHR expresses its deep concern regarding recent statements released by Efraim Sneih, Israeli Deputy Minister of Defense. These statements cannot be interpreted other than as evidence of the continued intention of the Israeli military establishment to carry out extra-judicial willful killing of Palestinians.

In his statement before the Knesset on 2 November 1999, in relation to a military operation against Israeli settlers apparently carried out by Palestinians, Efraim Sneih stated that the people responsible for the attack would not live more than a year. He added that those people will be arrested and killed.

PCHR believes that the statements of the Deputy Minister, reflect the attitudes of consecutive Israeli governments and the Israeli security establishment towards Palestinians, especially during the years of the Intifada. Attitudes which have resulted in the extra-judicial killing of hundreds of Palestinians.

Such statements also recall what is known as the ‘Bus 300 Affair’, in which Ehud Yatom, a member of the Israeli General Security Service testified to Yediot Ahronot (a widely read Israeli newspaper) on 26 July 1996 that he had been involved in the killing of both Sobhi and Magdi Abu Jame’a after they were arrested in the aftermath of kidnapping an Israeli bus in 1984. In the interview Yatom confessed that after the kidnappers were arrested he received orders from the head of the GSS at the time, Abraham Shalom, to kill them and that he carried out the order himself. At the time of the deaths, Yatom was pardoned by the Israeli president Chaim Herzog, after he gave false testimony before committees formed to investigate the case. In 1996, instead of taking legal actions against Yatom in light of his confessions to the newspaper, former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appointed him as his deputy advisor for terrorist affairs.

It is regrettably noticeable that 1998 witnessed marked deterioration in the excessive use of force by Israeli soldiers against Palestinian civilians. In circumstances that posed no threats to their lives, Israeli soldiers fired live ammunition at Palestinians who participated in peaceful marches and demonstrations. In some instances soldiers fired at civilians even in quiet situations. As when, for example, they fired against a Palestinian vehicle carrying workers on 10 March 1998. Three workers were killed and five were wounded.

In another incident a special force from the Israeli army assassinated two wanted Palestinians, Imad and Adel Awadalla, on 10 September 1998. During 1998, a total of 34 Palestinians were killed, 23 by the Israeli army and 11 by Israeli settlers.

PCHR expresses its deep concern that the statements by the Deputy Minister of Defense could lead to an increase in the excessive use of force and extra-judicial killing against Palestinian civilians. PCHR reminds the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention of their legal duties in accordance with the Convention, and demands their immediate intervention to stop these crimes, and to take legal action against the perpetrators and those who incite these actions.